"Whore-house Arizona"

Where I'm going: Quartzsite, Arizona

Which is apparently : "HOME OF THE WORLD FAMOUS GEM AND MINERAL SHOWS AND GENERAL SWAPMEETING"

What I'm doing there: Visiting my cousin. SWAPMEETING. Mingling with people who think it's still the '60s. Living out of a van. Possibly not showering for several days. Wandering into the desert to have some sort of spiritual experience. Basking in the sun while the rest of the Midwest freezes to death.

Sounds fabulous right? I'm braiding my hair, donning my tie dye, and adding American Beauty to my iTouch as we speak.

How did this come about you might ask?

Back in August my cousin, Kait, bought a school bus, painted it blue, and decided to make it her home/glass blowing studio. She left her hometown of Lawrence, KS for the west coast, but not before marrying her boyfriend in a river - probably the best wedding I'll ever be a part of, but that's another story completely. Anyway, due to cold weather they recently migrated down to Quartzsite to try to sell some of their art. Meanwhile, I came to Lawrence to visit my grandma for the holiday, and it was here that Allie, Kait's mom, asked if I wanted to road trip down to Arizona for a couple of weeks to escape the cold and visit her daughter. With nothing awaiting me back home except my freezing bedroom and reruns of CSI on Spike, I immediately said yes and started packing my bag.

We're leaving first thing tomorrow morning - a good 23 hour drive that will take us down through Witchita to Amarillo and then over to Albuquerque, Flagstaff, and Phoenix, before finally reaching our destination. We'll be driving through four states I've never even been to. I'm terribly untraveled when it comes to even my own country . . . but I guess I have to start somewhere. I've packed light, comparable to the "backpacking through Europe" Liz, not the usual "pack three times as many outfits as you'll actually wear and ten times as many hair products as you'll actually use" Liz, but I am bringing the laptop in order to do some better blogging. Hopefully I'll have Wi-Fi so I'll be able to post - it would suck not to be able to capture in writing the odd hilarity that these next two weeks will inevitably bring.